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By Kari Lydersen - In These Times, October 10, 2015; image by Jon Flanders

Disclaimer:The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

CHICAGO—Railroad workers from around the country and Chicago residents stood on an overpass on a recent bright September Sunday, watching a seemingly endless line of black tanker cars pass on the railroad tracks below. The train was likely carrying crude oil from the Bakken shale in North Dakota, judging by the red hazard placards on the cars and widely documented trends in crude oil shipment.

Chicagoans have become increasingly worried about oil trains carrying the highly explosive Bakken crude through the city, a major transport hub on the way to East Coast refineries. A conference hosted by the progressive labor group Railroad Workers United in Chicago Sept. 19 brought together railroad workers and local residents and train buffs to discuss how railroad workers’ safety and labor rights issues dovetail with safety and environmental concerns for the larger public.

Oil trains are a perfect example, speakers and participants at the conference noted. Just look at the July 6, 2013 disaster in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, when a parked oil train dislodged and plowed into the town, killing 47 and causing massive destruction and ecological devastation.

The train was operated by a single crew member, engineer Thomas Harding, who now faces the possibility of life in prison, with trial starting in November.

While prosecutors and the now-defunct Montreal Maine & Atlantic Railway have blamed Harding and several other railroad employees for the disaster, labor unions and other advocates say such tragedies are bound to happen more often if railroads are allowed to operate trains with single-man-crews and otherwise make staffing and management decisions driven by the bottom line rather than the needs and rights of railroad employees plus public safety.

This weekend, October 11-12, there will be rallies in Lac-Mégantic and Chicago, demanding freedom for Harding and railroad traffic conductor Richard Labrie, accountability from railroads and government regulators including bans on one-man-crews and a continued ban on shipping crude oil through Lac-Mégantic. A flier for the Chicago rally, held at noon on October 12 outside the Canadian consulate at 180 N. Stetson Drive, calls on “environmentalists, neighborhood organizations, railroad workers, steel workers, firemen, all unions and all justice-loving people” to support Harding and Labrie and demand strict safety regulations from the federal government.

The following protest took place on October 12, 2015 at the Consulate General of Canada in Chicago, at Randolph and Stetson, 1 block east of the NE corner of the Randolph and Michigan and was endorsed by Railroad Workers United following #RailCon15

Disclaimer:The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

No Oil Bomb Trains in Lac-Mégantic, Chicagoland or Anytown. Keep the explosive oil in the soil and out of our towns!

The coalition of groups endorsing this action are determined to send the message that we stand with the railroad workers in their efforts to keep our communities safe from the inherent dangers of these volatile oil trains, and that the railroad and oil corporations involved in the tragedy of July 6th, 2013, in Lac-Mégantic are the principal offenders. Specifically, we demand:

1. More than one man crews for all freight trains, especially the High Hazard Flammable Trains, such as the Bakken oil trains. In light of fatigue and emergency situations, a single man crew is insufficient for handling all possible dangerous scenarios.

2. No oil should be transported through Lac-Mégantic by rail until all the tracks in the town have been repaired and passed inspections. The people of Lac-Mégantic have been adamant about this and their demands should not be ignored.

3. We agree with the victims and residents of Lac-Mégantic when they call for the Canadian government to stop scapegoating Mr. Harding, the engineer of the train involved in the Lac-Megantic disaster. The residents are asking for further investigations, and that the blame for the accident climb up the chain of command and throughout the entire unsafe infrastructure of the railroad and oil corporations.

Chicago does not provide a public recycling scheme, but we can recycle for about $400 per year, working with a non-profit environmental education organization. Help General Headquarters "recycle as feasible," as our constitution suggests for all IWW shops. Click here to donate!

ecology.iww.org editor's note: this is true in many large cities. Curbside recycling pick-up was more or less invented by the Ecology Center in Berkeley, California, in the early 1980s (by a group that included some of the founders of the Bay Area chapter of Earth First!, and who helped Earth First! and IWW organizer Judi Bari organize IWW Local #1 in Mendocino County. They later organized Redwood Summer together. Coincidental with that, the curbside recyler drivers joined the IWW and became one of the first unionzed curbside reclycing pick-up crews in the world. That shop is still organized under an IWW contract to this date.

Disclaimer:The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.IWW member Tom Morello took part in this event!

“Stunning, just stunning, just stunning,” said Sheilah Garland, shaking her head as she stared out the window of the bus rolling along a dirt road next to towering black piles of petroleum coke on Chicago’s Southeast Side.

But Garland was shocked by the piles of petcoke, about six stories high, located across the street from homes. She was also perturbed to see employees walking onsite without respiratory masks.

The nurses union has joined local residents’ fight to get petcoke transportation and storage banned in Chicago. They see it as a serious public health issue and part of their larger social justice advocacy mission.

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